New UNHCR-led family visit exchange benefits six families

PERSISMA, Laayoune – Six Sahrawi families benefited Friday from a new family visit flights led by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), soaring the number of such trips to 25 in 2011.

Under this programme, members of Sahrawi family living in the Moroccan southern provinces visit their relatives in the Tindouf camps in south-western Algeria, and vice-versa.

The new visit exchange benefited 27 people. Thus, 12 people from three families flew from Laayoune to the camps, while 15 members of three families left the camps towards the southern provinces, the Moroccan Coordination Office with the UN mission in the Sahara (MINURSO) said in a statement.

This exchange took place in good conditions and necessary steps have been taken to guarantee a warm welcome to the participants in this operation, added the statement.

The new exchange brings the number of people benefiting from the UNHCR-led family visit exchange programme, since its launch in March 2004, to 11,569, including 5,577 people from the southern provinces and 5,992 people from the Tindouf camps.

Source: MAP